


Words Enough, and Time

by fencer_x



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 21:18:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15009644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencer_x/pseuds/fencer_x
Summary: Shion loves Nezumi, after a fashion.





	1. Side: Shion

**Author's Note:**

> The titles of each stanza refer to the different Greek ideas of love.

I. _Storge_

You wish Nezumi would kiss you while it’s raining.

You're sixteen years old; it's not like it's unnatural to have these desires. Really, you think you're rather strange for having never really had much interest in this sort of thing before, if you're being honest with yourself, but maybe that's not entirely true--and maybe you've always wanted this, wanted him, and you just never recognized it for what it was before.

Not that you really recognize it for what it is now.

You just know that there are days, now and then, in this almost mundane life you've settled into in the western block now, when the sky grays over with heavy clouds rolling in from the north and the temperature plummets and you think it might, finally, start snowing, but instead it's just a cold, soaking drizzle that works its way through your clothes with slow infiltration so that you don't realize you're dripping wet and shivering with latent fever until Nezumi is yelling at you with more anger than usual for ruining your only heavy coat and shoving you towards the shower with orders to strip and get washed up and into proper sleep clothes. He'll take care of dinner--he doesn't trust you, since you can't even take care of yourself.

His anger--frustration, really; annoyance and irritation with you for being yourself--warms you through more than the tepid, stinking water that smells of minerals ever could.

Still, perhaps if it weren't winter, you'd like Nezumi to kiss you in the rain. Maybe a typhoon, like the day you met him. A kiss just as fierce and violent and which would just as easily blow away everything you've ever known. A kiss that would change your life.

Not that your life hasn't been substantially changed even without such a kiss, but you find yourself longing--and longing is dangerous in the western block. Longing leads to pining leads to dazed wishing and hoping and yearning for things that will never be for one reason or another. If Nezumi knew you were filling your head with such frivolities, he'd either yell at you or lecture you--or both--and push you further away, because being friends is dangerous enough, he likes to remind you.

You don't let him know that you more than agree with him--just for all the wrong reasons.

You can't help it, is all: you can't help curling up on the couch to read _The Happy Prince_ for the fifteenth time while stealing glances at Nezumi mouthing lines to himself in the corner as he goes over his latest script, especially not when you can hear the soft _whoo_ of the wind ripping over the landscape outside, beating leaves and debris against the ruined skeletons of buildings surrounding your little scrap of earth, or the faint tapping of raindrops on iron, still not snow but still so tempting. If Nezumi were kissing you, you wouldn't mind the chill of the winter rain; Nezumi's a living, breathing person, and those--you've been told--are quite warm. You confirm this nightly when you slip under the covers next to him and pretend to sleep but really just close your eyes and _experience_ the close, quiet calm you can only find here, in Nezumi's apartment, in Nezumi's bed, by Nezumi's side.

You love this world Nezumi has shown you.

* * *

II. _Eros_

You wish Nezumi would kiss you like he did that whore.

You blush when you realize you have these sorts of thoughts, but there they are, rattling around in your head and poking and prodding you, reminding you, at the most inopportune moments, that Nezumi is worldly and cocky and confident and desirable on so many levels your head is spinning from it all.

It does leave you with a sort of guilt, though, that eats away at you. Nezumi is all the time griping and complaining about an audience member trying to cop a feel, or the bouncers having to discharge repeat offenders who manage to sneak into the theater, ranting and raving about how each and every member of the audience is only there to salivate and watch the show with one hand on their dick. He dismisses the expression on your face for disappointment in being repeatedly reminded you're to go nowhere near the playhouse, that you'll be eaten alive.

You hope he never realizes you're just as bad as those monsters packing the seats.

You try to reason with yourself, to stop this insipid self-hatred; you're sixteen, you have urges and physical needs and desires, and Nezumi is the closest thing you have to a friend, a companion, a partner right now. Nevermind that you've known Safu for longer and never felt anything near what you might term "desire" for her. What matters is only that you recognize these urges and cut them off before they can do damage.

You turn away and busy yourself with the dishes when Nezumi wanders out of the shower in just his sleep-bottoms, hair still wet with droplets slipping down his back and shoulders, and you swallow hard and close your eyes and count as high as you need to when he presses in close to you, trying to see what you've made for dinner and nosily inspecting the pot, frowning when he sees it's stew, again.

If there were some way to discreetly suggest you separate your sleeping arrangements now, you would do so in a flash, but as it is, you simply are grateful that Nezumi is an early riser and always leaves the bed before you, never noticing that you've taken to sleeping facing away from him, all but clinging to the wall desperately wishing for the swelling in your pants to go down.

Still, all the logic and precautions in the world will not stop your mind from wandering and wondering, as minds are wont to do, and you seek your release in the silent hours when Nezumi is off on errands or jobs and has left you behind because _you'll only slow me down_. You've grown quick in your ministrations and learned to keep your voice down, figured out the best way you like to be touched and stroked and what's just a tight enough grip and a slick enough channel to bring you off before Nezumi can come back and find you, curled up fetal on the bed with one of his shirts in your hand, breathing in his scent like an oxygen mask and whispering his name over and over and over.

You're pathetic, you realize. No better than any of the trash that chase after Eve in the performance halls, groping hands and leering eyes and voices crowing for a little more skin, a little shorter skirt. You want Nezumi, body and soul, and you want him to want you back.

Not just a kiss, you want him to fling open the door and shove you--harder than you expect--forcefully on the chest until you collapse backwards on the bed. You want to experience that same rush you did when you threw open the window and screamed your lungs out into the wind, screaming back at you with just as much violence and frustration and yearning to breathe free. You want your heart to beat heavy and loud enough to hear in your chest, pumping blood to your every extremity and reminding Nezumi and yourself that you're both alive and eager and warm and _ready_ , that you've always been ready for him--before you even knew about pale gray eyes or stringy hair and a bullet wound in need of stitching, you _needed_ him, would have died, suffocating in the oppressive cage of No.6 if he hadn't rescued you that night.

You want him to free you again, now. Show you everything you've been missing and leave you wanting more and more and more. You already feel like that, like you've got this unquenchable thirst, and he's there just in arm's reach; you know, even if you have him, that it won't ever be enough. But that doesn't stop you from wanting, _so badly_ , all the same.

You love that, though: the feeling that you'll never be able to get enough of him.

* * *

III. _Philia_

You wish Nezumi would kiss you when he comes home at night.

It's not for want of a physical connection--though that would be nice--or emotional release--nicer still--but maybe you've been reading too many books these long afternoons when it's just you and the rats: you want a _home_ with Nezumi.

You want it to be the two of you, and occasionally Inukashi and Rikiga-san if you happen to wrangle a good price on a ham at the market, and you want to sit down at the table (well, relax on the couch, rather) and gossip over dinner or listen to Nezumi gripe about his day while you nod and do the dishes and try to remember what time the apothecary opens because you're running low on acetaminophen and Nezumi's whining that he's sore from blocking a fight scene all day.

Or perhaps he'll be the one cooking for you, brows raised hopefully as you try some new concoction that you purposefully hold back your thoughts on just because it's nice sometimes to make him sweat and worry; you love that he cares what you think of him.

It seems strange that after spending your whole life in bored, pampered domesticity, you would still so long for it now--but you argue in your mind, where all such arguments take place, that it's different. It's with Nezumi, and he deserves a place to come home to and a family to welcome him there. You're probably getting full of yourself, thinking you can in any way fill the space a mother, father, siblings could occupy, but you firmly believe there is no one who cares for Nezumi more than you, and if that doesn't constitute family--what does?

You want to visit your mother--without the wall between you of course--and finish a piece of her cherry cake in three bites before asking for another while Nezumi warns in his teasing way that you're going to get fat and he's not paying for a whole new wardrobe if that happens, just so you know. You would flush and tell him to mind his own business, but then push your half-finished second piece in his direction. He would smugly finish it off for you and mutter his soft thanks to your mother before grabbing your hand and tugging you out the door--so that you can go home.

You want to be able to object to the abrupt departure and glance over your shoulder and see Karan smiling softly and shaking her head at the display. You want there to be no hesitation in your steps, though.

You never thought there'd be a time when you called some place home that wasn't you and your mother and a bakery--but there are none of those things here and it is still more the place you want to spend the rest of your life than Chronos or Lost Town ever were. Your home is not a neighborhood, not a building, not a room or a shop or a bed even. It is Nezumi, and even if Inukashi makes gagging sounds when you confess these things or if Rikiga-san shakes you by the shoulders and begs you not to be taken in by Eve's wiles, it is no less true.

You love the assuredness with which you can know these things, for it makes life all the more bearable when you can say, with all resolution, _I'm home_ and have someone there to confirm it.

* * *

IV. _Agape_

You wish Nezumi would kiss you _period_. But he won’t; he’s never offered, and you’ve never asked. He probably never will. So you kiss him instead. And yet--

You wish you could kiss Nezumi when it wasn’t goodbye. Because you love him--you _love him_ more than you've ever loved anyone or anything else, in every sense of the word and in all it implies.

And while that scares you and would likely scare him too, the thought of never being able to tell him that you feel precisely that way frightens you so much more.


	2. Side: Nezumi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nezumi loves Shion, in his own way.

I. _Storge_

You wish Shion would stop calling your name so casually.

He makes the moniker you use here in West Block sound so common, so _normal_ , that you feel for the briefest moment, when he welcomes you home in the evenings, that maybe it means something different when he says it.

Maybe you're not dirt, trash, a horrible excuse for a human being, a pest and a nuisance at best and a vile soulless murderer at worst. Maybe instead you're exactly what Shion sees in you--a friend and a companion, a warm body to lie next to in bed at night and curl against, fingers tracing old scars beneath thin linen until you complain that it tickles and roll away. Maybe you're worth kissing, no matter what the gesture means.

You're starting to not even mind the little whine he gives to it, drawing out the _mi_ with large eyes when you remind him you're not putting in funds for him to go and splurge on cherry cake again, even if you _did_ eat two slices last time and would kill for another. It's an exercise, you tell yourself: you have to train yourself out of this nasty habit of bending to his whim (or rather, teach yourself to tell more clearly when he's playing you like a piano) on the little things, or suddenly there will be something big and dangerous and your decision will affect a million other decisions down the line--he will ask you to do something, and you will have to stand up to him and be resolute.

He scares the shit out of you that way, how he's wormed himself under your skin like your own personal parasitic wasp, sucking you dry and leaving you a withered husk that can't survive without him calling your name in that achingly familiar manner, without him grabbing your hand and clutching it to his chest while he sleeps until your pulses mingle and beat as one, his heartbeat guiding your own. He could drive you to your doom, you're starting to realize, and all he'd have to do is say your name. _Nezumi_.

You love the way he says your name, even if you hate that very fact.

* * *

II. _Eros_

You wish Shion would stop calling your name when he jerks off.

You're a guy, too--it's not like you can't understand that sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do and it doesn't have anything to do with attraction on a grand scale or _love_ or any of that shit, it's just a flash of desire and it being _just the right thing_ at _just the right time_. Hell, you've gotten off thinking about a new water heater before. Human bodies are weird like that.

It _is_ a little strange, though, you have to admit. A guy who'll laugh without a mask and never let his voice waver or crack when you casually discuss whether or not he's gonna actually do his childhood friend should they meet up again--still blushes when you casually mention he took a long time in the shower, brows raised knowingly. Maybe it's because the situation's here, right in front of him, and not some far off "maybe" or "perhaps when"--it's just you on the couch drinking coffee and studying your script and him with his hair dyed a soft gray from the heaviness of the water, standing barefoot in the doorway of the bathroom looking like whatever he's just done is something to be ashamed of.

You want to tell him it's not, but that would be going too far.

Still, while you don't really _mind_ it…you wish he wouldn't do it. At least not where you can hear. He thinks you don't notice--when he's touching himself in the bed at night and trying to convince you-- _you_ of all people--that he's just trying to get comfortable, when he's braced against the wall of the shower and his voice carries because the concrete echos like hell, when you come home early and find him passed out on the bed with one of your shirts in one hand and the other in his pants.

But you notice--in ways you wish you didn't. Your heart starts beating faster, pulse rising and sweat breaking out across your brow. Your stomach turns--but not in a way from eating something foul, more like the excitement before stepping out onto the stage that you indulge in before remembering the audience is filled with nasty pieces of filth that you'd like to set boot to face to.

And worst is your dick; you wouldn't think much of it usually--you could easily brush it off as just a physical reaction. Someone's making noises like that, calling your name, of _course_ it's gonna get a reaction from you. You'd be worried if you _didn't_ stand up at attention with Shion mouthing off like that.

Except while you're pretty good at pulling off an act like that in front of others, there's no fooling yourself, and you know that you have far more to be ashamed of than Shion ever does when it comes to what you think of when you're jerking off.

You love that etiquette means you'll never have to confess that, though.

* * *

III. _Philia_

You wish Shion would stop calling your name, shouting it frantically in the marketplace and drawing attention that is neither wanted nor needed.

He stumbles through the crowd like a bull in a china shop, bumping into anyone and everyone it's possible to jostle, and earning a few murderous glares he probably doesn't even notice because he's an air-headed idiot and it figures you couldn't have been saved four years ago by someone with their head a little more firmly set on their shoulders. Maybe if you had, you wouldn't have to step up your pace every time he shouts your name again, each time more grating than the last.

You've tried lecturing, shouting, even gently reminding one time to see if you could sweet-talk him into stopping being such a blathering fool, but it all just culminates in the same ending: him getting jerked into a side alley by a guy selling switchblades that he likes to turn on unwilling customers or an old crone convinced that white head of his means he's an angel sent to cure the gangrene in her left leg.

Sometimes you wonder if he doesn't do it on purpose. Maybe he thinks you need a little more _excitement_ in your life and he's just the man for the job. You wouldn't put it past him--he can be a sly little shit when he wants, though he generally goes about executing his genius plans with the same finesse he exhibits when navigating the marketplace, which is none. You consider that a blessing in disguise, though: if he were as accomplished an actor as you, you're fairly sure you would have lost him--or abandoned him--long ago. You can't put up with fakes and falsities: you want your enemies to be one-faced and you want Shion to be Shion, the same frustratingly honest person now as he was when you were poised to choke the life out of him and he just wanted to know how you'd managed it. You're two-faced enough for ten people, as it is.

He likes to cook dinner. He's good at it, so you let him, but you'd probably let him do it anyways, just because he seems to think it's one of the few ways he can make himself useful to you. You could relieve him of that misconception in a flash, but instead you just smile and nod when he welcomes you home in the evenings and wonder, in your head, how many more times you'll be able to do this with him. How many more times you'll have to hunch your shoulders and step up the pace to escape his nagging calls in the street. How many more times he'll blow out the lamp before crawling into the bed next to you and whispering _Good night, Nezumi_ with a sigh far more contented than should be allowed for someone in his position.

You love that you won't have to deal with this for much longer--it's safer for everyone that way.

* * *

IV. _Agape_

You wish Shion would stop calling your name _period_. It hurts, all the different emotions he can press into three syllables, and you've had to endure it for so long you've almost gotten _used_ to the pain. And while that might be nice in the short-term, in the long-term it's only going to make it hurt all the more when time and tide tear you apart, when you stand not at one another's backs but in each other's faces.

You wish your name wasn't the first he called in the morning and the last at night (though sometimes, he does greet the damned rats first--and you hate the twinge of jealousy that slices through you at this), because any bit of normalcy in your daily life is only a trap to lull you into a false sense of security. Shion is no security--he is beautiful danger wrapped up in a pretty package that you never should have taken in in the first place. Your own personal Trojan horse. You're a fighter--a survivor, you don't just _accept_ this, you don't just roll over and _let this happen_ \--and yet you kind of _have_.

The worst thing, though?

You'd love to die, no matter the means, if it meant he could live.


End file.
